The Academic Affairs committee of the ASCSU has had an engaged, productive beginning of the year. In our September meeting, the vast majority of our time was consumed with discussions of Executive Orders (EO) 1100 (revised) and EO 1110 both issued during the summer. We focused on EO 1100 (revised) and discussed potential issues that have emerged with this revision. Ultimately, we decided that we would contribute, along with APEP and FGA, to a resolution asking for a delay in implementation of the changes in these executive orders. After extensive discussion and debate, this combined resolution ultimately was approved by the ASCSU. The length of debate, analysis, and discussion of the EO 1100 and EO 1110, is seen in the brevity of this report. Our time was consumed with these executive orders. This year, Academic Affairs is fortunate to have two outstanding Chancellor Office liaisons (Chris Mallon, Associate Vice Chancellor, Academic Programs and Faculty Development and Sheila Thomas, Assistant Vice Chancellor, Self-Support Strategy and Partnerships/Extended Education) who were able to contribute important insights in our discussion.

We also discussed our priorities for the year. These include developing a definition of student success. We would value any input readers have on this issue. It seems that too often “student success” is used to mean graduation in four years or is used in so many different contexts, it loses all meaning. We think faculty, and many others, would agree that it means much more than graduating quickly. We seek to help define, from a faculty perspective, what student success means.

Students cannot learn unless their mental health needs are met. Therefore, this year we will also be looking at the mental health counselor/student ratios across the system and discussing and writing on issues related to mental health.

Project Rebound is a wonderful program, begun at San Francisco State University, for formerly incarcerated individuals to earn their college degrees. Several campuses have these programs in a pilot stage. The graduation rate of students in these programs is astonishing, upward of 90%! We will be looking for ways to promote and help offer our support for further development and support of Project Rebound.

Clearly, students need affordable textbooks. That said, we discussed - with the benefit of insights from Gerry Hanley, Assistant Vice Chancellor, Academic Technology Services - some potentially unintended consequences on Full-Time Equivalent Students (FTES) and legislation (Higher Education Quality Act, 2010) that requires the cost and the availability of no-cost textbook options (SB 1359) on course schedules. For example, if one department has courses with no-cost textbooks and another does not, will students flock to the “no-cost” option? The answer is unknown at this time, but PeopleSoft has a field to indicate cost/no cost and the campuses are being encouraged to use that field and monitor student class selection.